US Patent Issued to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on Oct. 6 for "Semiconductor device and methods of formation" (Taiwanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,757,728, issued on Oct. 6, was assigned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Semiconductor device and methods of formation" was invented by Chung-Liang Cheng (Changhua City, Taiwan), Guanyu Luo (Chiayi County, Taiwan), Sheng-Chan Li (Tainan City, Taiwan) and Sheng-Chau Chen (Tainan City, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sealing layer is formed around a contact structure of a resistor in a semiconductor device. The sealing layer fills in and occupies areas around the contact structure in which an overhang of a hard mask layer occurs as a result of lateral etching of the contact structure during formatio...